Practicing and Transcribing Jazz Comping

[Nicholas BrunoParticipant]

Hello Rick,

I just had some question about practicing comping and transcribing piano players and guitar players comping. How do you practice chord voicings on a day to day basis? And also how do you practice chord voicings as it applies to tunes?

When you are coming up with comping ideas and different solo guitar arrangements are majority of the ideas taken from the recordings? And how do you approach transcribing the ideas on the recordings and having it a part of your practice routine?

I also have watched and read your videos and post about shell voicings and 4-note chord construction.

Thanks!

[Rick StoneKeymaster]

Nick,

I don’t exactly practice chords or chord voicings per se. I usually practice tunes, and in that context there are a number of things I might do with regards to chords:

1) I usually listen to several versions of a tune and start making note of what voicings are being used under the melody. For me this means mostly paying attention to the top note of the chord voicing and what colors are in the chord (this is especially true for dominant 7th chords since there are so many variations; 9, 11, 13, 7(b5), 9(#11), 13(b9), 7(#5#9), etc.). If you’ve got the right note on top and can hear what colors are really in the chord for guitar, it’s pretty simple. The same process is true for piano except that you often won’t be able to grab the exact voicing as the piano player (since they can voice notes much closer whereas on guitar we usually need to spread them out a bit). I’ve on occasion transcribed a chord melody, but rarely played it after I learned it as I’m much more interested in working out my own personal arrangements.

2) While I don’t exactly “transcribe” another players comping, I’ll often grab some specific things if I hear something that I like. This would definitely include things like substitutions and approach chords, maybe some chords played supporting the melody, etc.

3) When I started playing jazz, I was initially fascinated with the chords, and a friend recommended the old Mickey Baker Book “How to Play Jazz Guitar” which had lots of basic 6th and 5th string root chords. I started with those and when I got into my first jazz group, that’s pretty much what I relied on. Then I started learning chords in between those on the neck and just started filling in the blanks. It wasn’t necessarily playing strict inversions (although I did practice that too), but just finding compatible chords from the same family (major, minor or dominant) that sounded good together. Then a little at a time I learned passing chords and approaches. Barry Harris Sixth/Diminished concept also helped me a lot (I really need to make a video about that!)

4) I really do think about chords in a kind of “top-down” way (thinking of a melody note and then grabbing the chord down from that). Have you watched the videos on Chord Melody Voicings and Harmonic Ear Training? I think those will give you some insight into how I think about chords.

5) One specific chord study that I sometimes do is “Chords in 4-Frets” where I’ll try to find good voicings for the entire tune within each 4-Fret region of the neck (actually usually more like 5 frets as you’ll sometimes need to shift to get everything). I’ll do this starting with frets 1-4, then 3-6, 5-8, 7-10 and finally 9-12. It’s difficult at first because you may find that you don’t know many great sounding voicings in all those areas, but the more you practice it, the easier it gets. It’s a great study it gets away from those comfortable places on the neck where we always play and forces us to fill in those kind of “in between” areas. BTW, so excellent sources for chord voicings are Ted Greene’s book Chord Chemistry and Joe Pass Guitar Chords.

6) Try playing the chords of a song with all the same chord tone on top; All roots, then all 3rds, all 5ths, 7ths, 9ths, 11ths, 13ths. I rarely actually play this way, but it’s a great exercise to just become consciously aware of (and really hear) all the chord tones.

7) Another thing I sometimes like to practice is “Directional” comping. I’ll play a tune from any starting chord, and then try to keep the top note moving in a more-or-less scale-wise manner with each chord change.

And since you’ve had private lessons with me, you know that I tend to sing the top note of everything while I’m doing this stuff. I think that’s really the key; to listen and internalize these sounds, to develop a personal style. So that whether you’re playing a chord melody or comping you can be “in the moment” (as my teacher Ted Dunbar used to say). You’ll always be using bits and pieces of things that you’ve worked out or done before, but if you’re paying attention to what’s going on around you, you’ll learn to naturally just make good musical decisions.

I hope that kind of answered your question, but you know the whole “comping” thing is something that I really learned from just being “in the trenches” playing with other musicians and also doing a lot of solo guitar gigs. In each situation I’d have to just figure out what I could do to make the music better and then when I’d go home I might continue to think about it and practice things that I could use on the next gig. It was a pretty “organic” process and didn’t always move in a methodical straight line.

Musically Yours,
~ Rick

• This reply was modified 9 years, 4 months ago by  Rick Stone.

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